Sputtering, Artek tried to come up with a sensible reply to this madness. Beckla breezed by him, approaching the gargoyle.
"It's decided, Terrathiguss," she said cheerfully. "We're trying to get out of Undermountain, and you're welcome to come with us. I would like to call you Guss, too-it's a much nicer name for you. But it's all up to you, of course."
The gargoyle leapt to his feet in surprise. "Well, I like Guss just fine," he gasped, "but do you really mean the rest? You want me to come with you?"
Beckla nodded solemnly. "We do." "All of you?" Guss asked. He looked hopefully at Artek.
Artek opened his mouth, but a sharp glance from Beckla made him rethink his reply. "Yes," he grumbled darkly. "All of us."
"You might be sorry, you know," Guss said gravely. "I was created by dark wizards as a creature of destruction. I am evil by nature."
Beckla smiled. "I rather doubt that."
The gargoyle grinned back at her, displaying row upon row of sharp teeth. Somehow the expression was more charming than terrible. Artek was forced to admit to himself that Guss did seem friendly. And it couldn't hurt to have a gargoyle on their side.
"Look at this!" Corin said suddenly.
The nobleman had been rummaging inside one of the stone coffins, and his eager face was covered with dust. He gripped a tattered book in his hand.
The others gathered around Corin as he opened the tome. The brittle yellow pages were covered with the same spidery writing as the messages the two apprentices had scratched on the walls.
"I think it's their diary!" Corin exclaimed excitedly, thumbing through the book.
Artek peered more closely at the tome, but he could not make out the ancient writing. "Can you read it?"
Corin frowned, squinting at the murky text, then shook his head. "It's written in Thorass, all right. But I'm afraid the ink is too faded to make out more than a word or two. Perhaps I could-wait a minute! What's this?"
The nobleman flipped back to the page that had caught his eye. It displayed a map showing twisting halls joining myriad chambers. "I think this is the great avenue of Underhall we were in before," Corin said, pointing to a broad passage.
"What's this?" Beckla asked, pointing to a chamber with an X marked inside it and a line of text scrawled beneath it.
Corin studied the words for a moment. "I think I can make this out," he murmured, then nodded. "Yes. To the lair of our sister Arcturia.'"
Artek looked up in interest. "Their sister? What does that mean?"
Muragh bounced up and down in his hands. "Are you an idiot?" the skull piped up urgently. "Who else could be the sister of Talastria and Orannon besides-"
"Another apprentice," Artek finished in amazement. He rubbed the top of the skull with his knuckles. "Good thinking, Muragh. Especially for someone who doesn't have a brain."
"Thanks," the skull huffed in annoyance, squirming but unable to escape Artek's grip.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Beckla demanded, hopping off the dais. "Let's go find this Arcturia."
At first, Guss was reluctant to step outside the door of the ancient tomb, fearing he would turn to stone. But Beckla gripped his clawed hand and coaxed him through the portal. Finally he crossed the threshold, then cringed, eyes clenched shut, waiting for doom to fall upon him. Nothing happened. When he opened his glowing green eyes and looked down at his hands, they were still scaly flesh. He looked up at Beckla in wonder, then gave her a toothy grin.
Following the map, they made their way back up the five sets of stairs and down the broad, dusty boulevard hewn by the Melairkyn dwarves. Turning down a side passage, they wended their way through a maze of corridors until at last they came to the chamber marked on the map. There was nothing inside the small stone room but a round pool of dark water.
"Don’t tell me this was a wild goblin chase," Artek said glumly.
Beckla cautiously approached the pool, held out her hands, and spoke several words of magic. The dark water suddenly shone with a radiant blue light. Beckla nodded in satisfaction, then withdrew her hands, and the light faded.
"The pool is enchanted," she said, turning to the others. "While I can't be entirely certain, I think it's a gate."
"Either that or it will transform us into two-headed slime worms," Artek said. "We probably ought to do a few tests before we jump in."
"For once I agree with you, Ar'talen." The wizard started back toward the others. As she did, her boot heel skidded on the damp stones beside the pool. She reached out to balance herself, but it was too late. With a cry, Beckla fell backward into the dark surface of the pool.
The others rushed to the edge of the pool. Artek peered into the murky depths. "I can't see her!" he said frantically.
"And you won't, no matter how hard you look," Muragh replied, his reedy voice grim. "Not if this really is a gate."
"But where has it taken her?" Corin asked, wringing his hands.
Artek made a decision. "There's only one way to find out."
The nobleman's eyes went wide. He started to back away from the pool. "Oh, no. You don't intend to-"
"Grab him, Guss!" Artek shouted.
The gargoyle caught the squirming lord in his stony arms. "Got him, Artek," Guss grinned. "Ready?"
Artek gave a sharp nod. "As Ш ever be." He tightened his grip on Muragh. "Let's go."
Together they leapt into the pool.
Chill water closed over their heads, and they plunged down through freezing darkness. A brilliant light appeared below and grew rapidly into a silvery rectangle. Together they fell through the glowing gate. Artek's senses were abruptly turned on their sides as he found himself not falling through the portal like a trapdoor, but rather stepping through it, as if walking past a sheer curtain of cool silk and into a shining room beyond.
"Greetings, wanderers," said a shimmering voice. "Welcome to my abode."
For a moment Artek was utterly disoriented. At last he blinked and saw that he and the others indeed stood in some sort of chamber, but he could make out few details. Everything was washed in glowing silver light. Then the light dimmed as a figure stood before them, and they all gasped.
She was beautiful. Her skin was as green and radiant as emeralds, and long hair tumbled about her shoulders in waves of polished jet. She wore a pale, diaphanous shift that seemed to accentuate the lushness of her smooth body rather than conceal it. Blue wings-as fine as those of a dragonfly-fluttered gently behind her. Eyes as bright as the sun shone from her delicate, nymphlike face.
Finally, Artek found his tongue. "Arcturia?" he murmured in wonder.»
Her laughter was like clear water on crystal. Indeed, I am Arcturia," she said in her bell-like voice. "And who else had you expected to find beyond the gate?"
Artek turned to glance at the portal behind them. It looked like a polished silver mirror hung within the carved stone archway, reflecting not this room, but rather the chamber with the dark pool. Even as Artek watched, the portal flashed, and the image changed, showing a shadowed hallway. After a few moments the silvery door flashed again. Once more the image shifted, now displaying a vast throne room.
"Many gates lead to this one," Arcturia said in answer to his look of wonder. "But that need concern you no longer, for now you have found me. Come-you must be thirsty, hungry, and tired. I will take you each to a place where you may find rest and peace."
Rest and peace. The words echoed deliciously in Artek's mind. Suddenly he could think of nothing else. It was exactly what they needed, but could they truly find it with one of Halaster's apprentices?
Arcturia reached out a slender hand toward Corin, whose eyes seemed to glaze over as he looked upon her with a rapt expression of joy. She smiled and led the nobleman away into the silvery light. He did not resist. Soon she came back to lead Beckla and Guss away in turn. They did not resist either, and Artek found he could only watch them be taken away. He could not move, and he was not sure if he even wanted to.